


Créme Brûlée Ice Cream

by NotoriousReign



Category: Army Wives, Faking It (TV 2014), Gossip Girl, Legend of the Seeker, Marvel (Comics), X-Factor (Comics), Y: The Last Man
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7990678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotoriousReign/pseuds/NotoriousReign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ice cream they eat in two different universes together. Or for a more accurate description and title... Twenty-Four Ways Jamie Madrox and Layla Miller Would Have Met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Créme Brûlée Ice Cream

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Alternate](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/228019) by NeverMessWithTeddyBears. 



> This fic was inspired by a Castle fanfic on ff.net called Alternate by NeverMessWithTeddyBears, but with a bigger alternate universe twist. How is one supposed to act like Jamie and Layla in Gossip Girl is crazier than the stuff they've ACTUALLY been through? 
> 
> Full disclosure, I have to make a disclaimer for a number of things. First, I do not own the characters of Jamie Madrox and Layla Miller, they belong to the people who own Marvel comics, especially anything X-Men related.  
> Speaking of Gossip Girl, for number 8 I do not own that universe, it belongs to Cecily von Ziegesar, Josh Schwartz, and Stephanie Savage. Same goes with numbers 9-12, that universe I drew inspiration from belongs to Brian K Vaughan. And with number 14 that universe belongs to Terry Goodkind and Sam Raimi.
> 
> Everything about 18 belongs to Paullina Simons. The male from 21 belongs to Katherine Fugate and the female belongs to Dana Min Goodman, Julia Wolov, and Carter Covington. With both 18 and 21 I imagined the same actors as I have been these last few years for Jamie and Layla and I couldn't resist. You can't blame me, Brant Daugherty and Rita Volk are SO PERFECT for the roles. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

* * *

1.

 

The world is ending and she knows it. Mutants were rounded up in secret at first, but then the government stopped caring. Most humans stopped caring too. Layla distinctly remembers something like this having happened before in history, but she doesn’t really care because she assumes this part won’t be remembered as history. _She_ especially won’t be remembered in history.

Her head was shaved and she was placed with the other young teens her age. She was stoic and quiet even for their liking and it reminded her of the orphanage. An orphanage that soon became a distant memory.

When you don’t appreciate that life is when it gets taken away from you. Even when it was bad it was still better than _this_.

Layla watches as her peers get taken away, one by one. Some come back damaged and mute, most don’t come back at all. Still, as much as she doesn’t want to, she’s the only one who seems to survive.

The days become a painful numb blur. Her hair grows out, gets shaved again, she ages to a horrible degree. The guards are baffled as to why she’s even there, watching her as she spends some days standing and staring at the sky just past one of the gates.

One day as Layla washes clothes with other inmates a new man arrives. They all look up briefly but forget about him instantly.

Layla doesn’t notice it at first, but soon the man is everywhere she happens to be. His bed is next to hers, he does the daily exercises with her. He’s tall and confident for someone in a death camp, but she could see the sadness in his dark eyes at what the world has become for the mutants.

When they’re alone, sitting by the gate, staring out at the vast world, he finally speaks to her.

“How old were you when they brought you in here?”

Layla doesn’t look at him when she answers. “Fifteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“I don’t really know…”

“You look like you’re somewhere in your twenties now.”

He tells her there was something about her that he wanted to protect, now he can’t seem to shake the fact that they should be out of this hellhole together.

“You know… there’s a rebellion forming. I have the power to duplicate myself. They didn’t get _all_ of me.”

She pauses. Blinks.

“You’ll take me with you?”

“First we need to get out.”

 

* * *

 

2.

 

The only time they spoke was when Jamie was coaching them against Scott’s team. Layla had found her way into Xavier’s school just two years ago and this guy wasn’t exactly a teacher. He was just helping out.

“We need to crush them. Okay? I’ve never wanted anything more than to wipe that smug smile off Summers’s face.”

Layla, raising her hand, asks “What happened to teamwork?”

Jamie waves her off. “Later.”

Those were the only words they ever spoke to each other.

 

* * *

 

3.

 

Jessica hands Layla her coffee as they make their way down the bustling street. There’s a baby strapped to Jessica’s chest and Layla can’t help wiggling her fingers, attempting what she deems cute noises. She cares more about Danielle than the coffee at this point, even though their investigations yesterday had exhausted every portion of her.

“What else we got for today?”

Jessica sighs. “Can’t we just enjoy the nice stroll?”

But it doesn’t last and Jessica sighs in exasperation, realizing it had been Layla’s own little way of _knowing_ what was to come. Standing by their front doors is a man in a sleek leather trench-coat, but his hands are fidgeting and he peers around himself as if he’s being watched. Layla, shorter than him, but all attentiveness, extends her hand.

“Hi. I’m Layla Miller. How can we help you?”

He clasps her hand and introduces himself as James. “I need your help. Someone’s kidnapped my friend.”

 

* * *

 

4.

 

She’s only the assistant. So she shouldn’t be eavesdropping. But his eyes are on her.

Madame Agnes parts the beaded curtain that lets him walk in with a dark-skinned woman and a red-haired one, letting the man sit in the middle in front of her crystal ball.

“What fortunes would you like me to envision for you today?”

“It actually has something to do with a case we’re investigating.”

“This is stupid.” The darker woman mutters, a little too loudly.

Layla, only twelve, eavesdrops from the back as she’s sweeping away, cleaning Madame Agnes’s treasures. She looks up briefly as she passes the doorway and Jamie glances at her. He gives her a smirk and a wink and she shakes her head to herself.

Nothing more.

 

* * *

 

5.

 

The world is obsessed with fortune tellers and mystics. Miss Layla Miller isn’t as well-known as most of the others in turn of the century New York, but the year 1901 had been good enough for her. She _wants_ people to think she’s a scam, she _wants_ the attention to be directed towards anybody else. The little shop is the best she could do to cover up her erratic powers without being put away in one of those asylums.

One day he walks in with two other women, takes off his cap and sits down in front of the glass orb. Layla clears away dust. The women remain standing.

“Miss Miller? I need your help with an investigation.”

Layla places her hands on the crystal ball. Her fingers are riddled with rings that clink on it enticingly. She removes her blue eyes from his caramel ones and watches light flicker in the orb.

“I don’t know if I could do much, but I’ll try.”

 

* * *

 

6.

 

Her father dies just as the year begins. In 1872 the winter ruins everything. Their crops won’t grow, their animals are dropping from sickness. Layla, all alone, does not know what to do. And now there’s talk of a sheriff traveling around the country, looking for people with powers.

Layla huddles under the warmth of her blanket during one long night when she hears a knock at the door. Her muscles are stiff but she still stands. It isn’t the sheriff. It’s someone else, someone better.

She hopes. She _knows_.

Jamie waits at the bottom of the front stairs, cold air biting into him. He starts to comb his fingers through his hair, anxious, until she walks out and he straightens up. Her gaze is on the carriage behind him, the buff man smoking and bored, driving it.

“Miss? We don’t have much time.”

“I know.”

“Pack your things. We’re here to protect you.”

She smiles. “I know that too.”

 

* * *

 

7.

 

Well-past the shrieking and the vicious shoving from the rest of Lila Cheney’s fans, Layla finds the singer and her roadies packing up around the corner from the concert’s original venue.

She takes a deep excited breath as she watches Lila talking to a man with crossed arms, messy brown hair, and – _god_ – sunglasses at this hour, but just as Layla is about to approach the group she feels a hard shove at her shoulder.

The large bodyguard that had been at Lila’s side from start to finish, glares down at the petite girl. Layla, eyes wide, could barely get a good look at such a monolith, her head only reached just under the nametag that read _“CAROSELLA”_.

“Nice try honey.”

“Please? I’m not gonna do anything.”

“That’s what they all say. Go home already kid.”

“I don’t… _have_ a home.”

With the heaviest sigh Layla had ever heard the giant bodyguard, who is the biggest softie she ever could have realized, leads her to his charge. Lila and the guy she was talking to, Carosella’s friend Jamie it seemed, turn away from their conversation.

“Lila, I’m your biggest fan. I swear to God I have nowhere else to go. Would you… have any room for another groupie?”

Lila smiles. Her spiky black hair glints under the lamplight. Jamie rolls his eyes when she answers. “Always room for more groupies.”

“Yeah? And there won’t be an amber alert in two days for her whereabouts?”

Layla squares her shoulders. “Who wears sunglasses at _night_?”

Jamie, not having actually expected her to answer him, just shoots her an annoyed look. Lila claps her hands together and laughs.

“Come on kid, grab some coffee. Gonna be a long ride.”

 

* * *

 

8.

 

Gossip Girl here. Your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.

Old friends N and S attended the wedding of J and L, two last names becoming one. Isn’t that just romantic? And who knew it all started with a simple question. “Are you alright honey?”

Let’s take a stroll down memory lane shall we? The same life-changing cotillion where we watched N escort Little J was the same one where Little L had her dress ruined and wouldn’t show her face until another older boy showed her some well-needed attention.

Four simple words and now they’re married. My how time flies. They deserve each other, always the odd ones in groups. My lovely readers remember.

You know you love me.

 

* * *

 

9.

 

In this world, in this time, they never meet. A plague wipes them all out, _them_ being the men.

She had to fend for herself for those first few years. As she grew she forgot about the memories of her father. As she grew and joined the acting troupe, viciously avoiding the women grateful for the men’s demise, and as her creativity blossomed she never had to think about a man breaking her heart. Not again. Not like her father did by dying.

And she lived her life.

 

* * *

 

10.

 

In this world, in this time, they never meet. A plague wipes them all out, _them_ being the women.

He had to fend for himself for those first few years. It was harder for him to forget his mother, for him to forget the women he had loved, because the plague hit when he was twenty-one.

He had to stop a few of his friends a number of times from killing themselves and wondered often why he didn’t just do it to himself. Why did _he_ deserve to live?

But he joined a militia. Eventually he forgot about the women who broke his heart by dying.

And he lived his life.

 

* * *

 

11.

 

She watches him help her father move everything into their new apartment. They invite him to stay for dinner and he smiles at Layla. This older boy smiles at her.

But then the plague hits. Jamie starts coughing blood. Her father starts to do the same. And they die.

The first few years she has to live with the memories of them as she survives in a world of women afraid to trust anybody. She writes them into her stories and envisions them in plays when she joins an acting troupe.

This is how she copes at first. But then they start to fade. A distant memory that nags at the back of her mind. She’s so young, she eventually thinks they’re a dream.

And so she lived her life.

 

* * *

 

12.

 

He’s reading the paper as she sits across from him in the tiny café in New York. Her dad wanted to meet with him for a job and Jamie can’t help smiling at the way she fidgets around him and steals glances up at him.

Before he could ask her a question the plague hits. Blood comes pouring out of her mouth and nose and eyes and Jamie grabs her before she falls onto the ground, helplessly cradles her head.

But it’s happening all around him.

In the coming years she isn’t the only woman he has to cope with remembering, but she pops up more often than he would like to admit. This teen girl who didn’t get to live her life in a vicious world and here he was, trying to prevent his friends from killing themselves, prevent himself from doing it.

When he joins the militia he still remembers all of them, including that girl. He draws her, but only does this once. Then he forgets, he grows hardened. They’re only a memory, but never a dream.

And so he lived his life.

 

* * *

 

13.

 

In this world Stephen Strange is his teacher. He becomes a powerful wizard thanks to the man’s training, Jamie becomes adept with his own duplicates.

Strange finds her scavenging for food and equipment in their basement one day and brings her to his apprentice during one of their study sessions.

Layla watches the magic books and candles swirl around her but is unimpressed. Jamie is unimpressed with this impish girl but still sees some kind of spark in her. His teacher has a vice grip on her arm and she just glares straight ahead. Strange curls a finger down her cheek.

“What should we do with her?”

After his death when Jamie is fighting Dormammu Layla is by his side. She is becoming almost as powerful of a witch under his training.

And maybe something more.

 

* * *

 

14.

 

High in her tower she watches the lush fields in the distance. She watches when the rain gives the forests sustenance.

It was her own choice to lock herself in this place. She didn’t mean to touch him, brush her hand across him in such a crowded bar. Now, consumed with a lust he doesn’t understand he searches for her.

Eventually he does find her. She feels bad but this is how it has been for many Confessors before.

“There you are.”

He had said that to her before when she made her mistake. And now she says the same thing she did to him before she hid.

“Here I am.”

 

* * *

 

15.

 

This was probably one of his favourite missions with the X-Men. When they refuel at the mansion and Jamie gets to take his suit off he meets the newest recruit.

Her name is Layla and already he recognizes her. She recognizes him too.

They both know about the parallel universes. They’ve dedicated their lives to it. Neither says it, but they know the other knows it. They are distinctly aware that in almost ten years they will get married and die because they will need to make the universe right again.

But they don’t bother rehashing this in front of their teammates.

“You’re really gonna have fun with this crew.”

“Oh I plan to.”

 

* * *

 

16.

 

Layla pushes the hand away and observes herself in the mirror. Good enough.

“Ms. Miller, the agent for the interview is here.”

She huffs and doesn’t even look at the assistant. Madrox was the first of many mutant interviews she had to deal with for the day and all with a big bright smile for the masses of New York. She followed the assistant down the hall to the main chairs where they would be filmed and what she expected from this SHIELD agent was correct. Tall, clean haircut, not a smile in sight. She openly gave him a once-over and managed a smirk from him.

“I guess you’ll do. You’ve been prepped over the interview questions right?”

“You have nothing to worry about Ms. Miller. I’m a professional.”

 

* * *

 

17.

 

Layla never wanted to be fate’s chew-toy.

In this universe she doesn’t allow it, not once. She stays in the orphanage, she doesn’t pursue the team, she stays in another place that doesn’t want her. She doesn’t go to X-Factor during all the times she knew she should have, even when she has a voice at the back of her mind screaming for her to help them.

No. She grows as hardened as she’s supposed to. She’s taunted and she’s forced to forget she even had parents that changed her whole world. In quiet anguish Layla honed her skills, sure of the fact that she truly was a mutant.

They stopped Bishop from killing Hope but at the cost of another new mutant. The wrong mutant. Jamie kept playing it over and over in his head how they could’ve avoided this. How they should’ve _seen_ that this man from the future had never wanted to go after the baby Cable was protecting.

In this universe, when Layla refuses to be fate’s chew-toy, Jamie and Terry’s son Sean Madrox dies. To everyone else it is the possible prevention of the end of the world. To the two of them their whole relationship is ruined.

This would be the moment when the x-factor of his dupes starts manifesting again. He gets a divorce, he quits the team and joins X-Force. And all through the turmoil the x-factor feeds on his anger. Why should he lose everything while there are people out there seeking to destroy the world?

They meet when Valeria and Nathaniel Richards ask the X-Men for help finding their mother. Layla sits rigidly as Doom paints her and Jamie is one of the few who’s able to break in. They are both old and tired and they barely glance at each other.

“Get out miss before you get hurt.”

“He won’t hurt me.”

“I wasn’t talking about Doom.”

She turns and gifts Jamie a sly smirk, a smirk from another life. “Neither was I.”

 

* * *

 

18.

 

In this universe there are no powers or mutants. There is no time traveling. Her name isn’t even Layla and his isn’t even Jamie. There’s just Leningrad in June 1941.

She sits on the bench eating her ice cream, crème brûlée, waiting for the bus she missed. She wears a white dress with fully blooming red roses on it, but it’s too small now, the straps don’t tie completely on her back.

She spots the soldier standing across the street and stops eating her ice cream because something was awakening inside her. She could feel it. He was watching her with an expression she never saw before but understood completely.

War was just declared in the country. They almost missed each other but when the bus passed again he finally went to her.

“Your ice cream is melting.”

 

* * *

 

19.

 

Living in a football town in Texas comes with its perks. Whole holidays are dedicated to games. She doesn’t really care, but then she develops her first ever crush.

She’s fourteen and he’s a senior being picked up by potential recruiters. She watches him play his game, shine in glory, but he doesn’t really know who she is. She’s too young.

One day he gets awarded a medal during an assembly. Little Layla is volunteering, helping out, when he leaves the stage and bumps into her.

He winks. “Sorry about that sweetheart.”

“It’s okay. Congrats.”

 

* * *

 

20.

 

Living in a football town in Texas comes with its perks, except for the underlying conservatism throughout. He knew he would never be able to reveal what he could do, he knew even as he’s being recruited that he would spend the rest of his life like in a state of hidden distress.

But then one day he sees her on his way home from practice. She brings a baby sparrow back to life and it flies away to its mother, forever grateful. This young teen girl is like him, a boy too old to be over life already.

“How did you do that?”

“Magic.”

“That’s how you explain it to yourself?”

She shrugs and Jamie could see the fear in her eyes. She wasn’t used to people knowing about her ability. It was the same with him.

“Then that’s how I explain my power to myself too.”

 

* * *

 

21.

 

Another world without mutants and powers, another world where they have different names but it’s still them.

Before making her way with the rest of the girls to Portland Oregon she takes a trip with them to other places in the United States. The ultimate road trip really. She’s never taken this many pictures before in her life, never even dreamt of this.

Before their final decision to make their trip back west, they stop in one more place. Charleston has a surprising amount of women who wait for men in armies. She can’t even imagine a life like this and is honestly ready to go, but the pictures speak for themselves.

“Are you even allowed to bring a camera near army bases?”

She fumbles with her words, almost drops the camera, but he smiles brightly under his cap.

“I’m just kidding around. What other pictures have you taken?”

After loving a best friend who couldn’t love her back, he was the first one to help her get better.

 

* * *

 

22.

 

Commander Julian Richter pulled the stowaway by her hand out of the back of the vessel. They were sailing off to the colony in Roanoke once they heard Witchbreed had been finding peace there… and none of them needed this distraction right now.

James Arthur Madrox, a man who used to work oh so diligently for the king’s guard, sighs the second he sees her. She’s older than one would expect, but not old enough to be on this ship.

“You do realize if you get sick while you journey with us there’s nothing we can do for you.”

“I can manage.”

On the contrary, days later he’s the one to contract a ravaging disease.

Everybody steers clear from him but her.

 

* * *

 

23.

 

“Who the hell is this? Really Madrox another one?”

“She’s not infected.”

The redhead rolls her eyes as if that’s the dumbest thing she’s ever head. The darker girl continues.

“That’s not what I asked is it? And don’t even think about saying the more the merrier.”

Without a word Layla lifts her crossbow and shoots the zombie approaching them from afar square in the forehead. She puts the weapon down and checks her ammo.

Nobody says anything. She’s not going anywhere.

 

* * *

 

24.

 

In reality, in this universe, what really happened was something even more complicated and beautiful.

A young teen girl, about fifteen years old, integrated herself into a man’s detective agency without a single person asking her to. She knew they needed her, so she went to them, and let them need her. Even though _they_ didn’t see this truth for what it was.

Love.

Jamie went to his small office, having just collected the Chinese food he ordered. He tried to push away the thought that one of his own dupes tried to kill his friend by pushing Rictor off a building. “Nobody trusts me now. Who can blame them?”

She pops her head in before he could take a bite. “You’re going to want to take that when it rings. It’s important.”

Her very presence baffles and astounds him for years to come. And in those years they fall in love, she picks up his pieces when nobody else can, and he does the same for her.

They get married after sharing crème brûlée ice cream together and the rest is history. Jamie and Layla are forever grateful he picked up that phone.

 

* * *

 


End file.
